There will come a time in your career as an electrician where you will be challenged into thinking, were you born to be an electrician? A tough and harsh question that I have personally faced many times. Believe me I’ve cried many times and have felt the heavy depression to end everything.

I’ve had to look back at the time when I failed out of my university and I asked myself why was I such a hateful human. Couldn’t I see even back then to try and pick myself up from the dirt of my own shit.I’ve had those moments when I felt completely useless, I remember crying to my teachers in class about it but there was one who believed in me. There was one who told me to never listen to those idiots who keep making me feel useless.

When I had a Facebook I remember I was crying and writing a post on an Electrician group. They were good people that have given me peace and a form of feeling better. That was the reason why I built this wordpress was in the idea there must be millions of tradesman throughout the world crying and cursing God for their disabilities. We can’t control who we are and sometimes the only thing we can do is try and reconfigure our lives.

Indeed we live in rough times where people look at us as garbage on the streets. It’s pathetic how they look at us as purely worthless when we can do a lot but only one or two things. Thanks to technology though, there is rapid advancement to cover the places that we were lacking in. It’s going to come soon you just have to keep strong.

However, I understand the feelings you’re going through.Don’t give up because there is a place for you in this world and it will come soon. There are many places you can excel in that many “perfect” electricians can’t excel in. Resilience is in many stories that we read about whether we find it in Asop’s fables or the bible.

I’m sure we all hear that ghosts are energy but what exactly do they do? Well ghosts tend to create an electromagnetic field that can actually play with certain parts of the brain causing dizziness or hallucinations, which may be the reason why we tend to fear ghosts. These fields tend to have a sound known as infrasound, which is something typically associated with spirits. This field of energy is what causes the feelings of discomfort and paranoia.

Well before we get frightened I do need to let you know that many engineers and electricians actually do NOT believe in ghosts. The idea that there is an intelligence amongst a field of energy sounds crazy to a lot of them. Even though there are also many engineers and electricians who are devoutly religious. In one sense they don’t believe in ghosts, however they will believe in the Prophets of Muhammad,Jesus and Moses.

Something that electrical people can not disprove is the fact that our whole bodies use electricity. Our very heart works the same way as a water pump in a pool.Our minds tend to work like a circuit board where one thought is like a switch that moves our muscles.Not only that but we also recycle the same electricity throughout our body until our hearts give out.Another law that helps with the Ghost theory is that energy never goes away or dissipates but only transfers to another vessel or area that needs it.

Based on these laws, if your grandmother is not a ghost then she probably is being used in a sewage pump which is moving your whole town’s sewage into another area. Then once used up she goes back in the air again in order to become the same energy some nerd is using to for his sex robot. So you’re grandmother is being used for a nerd to pleasure himself. I believe it’s a lot more pleasing to think of her haunting her cemetery.

Jokes aside the only 2 ways that can happen is if she died next to a power plant or her energy wandered into one. The point of that was to explain exactly how the transfer of energy cycles. But still the question still ponders, does your body have enough energy to create a loosely joined body of protons and electrons that can affect a living person? Questions, questions and more questions that need to be solved.

I do not know the question of whether or not ghosts exist. I personally have never encountered one but I do know people who have, however it still does not come across as true. The only time I will personally believe ghosts exist is if they are stand right there scaring me with their flailing arms and ooga booga eyes. And even if I see one I will probably just get one of my poorly made motors with the glued on magnet, poorly attached rotor sitting on a nail and the threaded copper wire that wraps around the magnets.Who knows, the ghost might be shot out of the rotor and into some stupid kid’s ouija board.

Ouija Boards are probably the next rip off idea, that makes no sense that some words and a board made by Hasbro can summon ghosts and demons. The only reason why people “feel” the glass piece moving is mainly because they move it on their own in anticipation of empty promises.

The art that gets me to build and design many ideas comes from nothing more then the Anime everyone has forgotten about. I remember when the world was much happier with anime. No one cared much about politics or religion, it was all about building art inspired by our childhood.

Things were so great sometimes I feel like that’s why everyone loves Japan and why they are such a fun country. They get inspiration from their own anime to build robots that look after their elderly.

I remember having a Facebook and was part of an electrical group that really never enjoyed what I enjoyed in it. They had smart ass remarks like “what kind of drugs are you taking” or something like that but to this day the robotics side of my Electrical world is powered on nothing but Anime.

When I work on my Arduino projects I tend to build based on these ideas of Cyborgs that are able to regenerate after a punch from a Super Saiyan.

Personally I’m getting sick and tired of Elon Musk scaring the shit out of car enthusiasts. All a fully autonomous self driving car will do is be an alternative way for people to get around in wide open states.

Blind,deaf and disabled people along with people who feel uncomfortable driving will just have a new option of not having to take the bus. There are also a lot of people who actually still like taking the bus. Clearly this whole hype has caused mass hysteria among paranoid idiots.

If a car enthusiast really thinks about it, it might be a great idea because then there will be a brand new area of cars to read about. There will be many more car enthusiasts for you to make friends with and you have a brand new field of cars to study and learn the mechanics of.

Stop listening to Elon Musk, an arrogant, self indulgent douche with hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s a lot like listening to an arrogant frat dude who won the lottery.

A nice little Christmas post with the idea of looking at what the average American tradesman will look like in 2050.

Understanding how things will turn out has a lot of different factors for us. Within 5 years, 43% of all US electricians will be ready for retire and very little young blood is replacing them. Industry has been leaving for quite sometime and for most cities throughout the USA being a tradesman tends to require a lot more than it used to.

Our youth do not fit the ideal tradesman starting from the fact 73% of high school seniors, as of 2012, have a drivers license. This trend has been happening for a long time now and seems to only go faster.

The trend actually tends to grow every 10 years. In 1983 the number of drivers licenses were at a rate of 92%,1996 85% and 2012 was 73%. 7% and 12% decline rates we see and it will only get larger overtime. It’s very possible by 2022 the rate can be as low as 56%.

Issues come from a lot of different angles but the main one is the fact many states have enforced much stricter laws on getting a license at the age of 16-18.

So if we wish to bring in new blood into this trade there will be changes that need to be looked at.

The next issue is the way that the mainstream American society tends to make fun of tradesman as low middle class rednecks. I’m sure we’ve all heard the old Plumber’s crack joke.

Not only that but electrical work is perceived as a deadly and frightening profession where you can die at any second, if only the American population knew about the secret of shutting off the power. Plumbers are perceived to be working in pure shit which is only semi true. Their pretty little noses are too sensitive for the smell no matter what the salary is.Concrete and longshoreman though are never really mentioned as jobs until you are within the second 6 months of your trade career.

Perceptions,perceptions and of course perceptions are now causing the aging of our industry.

However there is hope though, I remember talking to a 30 year old post UCLA grad from Jordan who loved his work as a carpenter. He told me everything he learned in UCLA was worthless and only recently found work building shelves just a year ago.

What people don’t understand is that there is still an under current of people who would love this work but have never heard of it. So many kids out there failing classes and feeling like losers when they don’t even realize how good they can be in construction.

How to solve the problem?

Unions need to start going to high schools and start promoting themselves. Promotion at an early age may spark interest in kids who are not doing well in school. Promises of high wages and good benefits can spark anyone’s attention.

The drivers license issue needs to be looked at in order to say that anyone can join us. Understand there are many new ways of getting around town besides just a car. Uber and Lyft have provided excellent sources of travel without the need for a drivers license. Although you do need a license as a service technician, yes some jobs require you to drive the company vehicle but you do need to say for construction jobs, you don’t care how you get there just get there on time.

And last but not least a topic that has not been brought up is the need for the re industrialization of the United States. Automated factories can easily bring in a lot of attention from skilled electricians.

If nobody takes action?

Then the future looks to be a very old one. Very little work is ever done and the average tradesman will be around 40 or 50. Apprentices will probably be in their mid to late thirties and the next 40-50% drop can easily occur.

The talent will be heading into engineering work but who will be left to do the dirty? Hispanic labor should not be relied on due to the fact the children of the present day Hispanic tradesman are becoming engineers,doctors and lawyers. The California state university system is seeing huge spikes in Latinos becoming engineers.

So most of the trades workers will probably be coming from the prison system. Ex gang members will be the main source of labor and the trades will only sink lower in reputation. And employment will have no choice but to overlook felonies and crimes in order to hire these people. Once that happens then how will you have a trustworthy team of individuals and how will this not affect the quality of work?

If you wish to create your next big idea there is a stringent law you should know. Do you need a Contractors license or C-10 to sell it?

I’ve thought of this idea for a long time along with asking many of my peers in my electrical classes. When you think of people who have built the greatest inventions known to me EG Wozniak,Edison and Tesla, how many from those 3 people need a contractors license today?

2 out of the 3 and those two would be Tesla and Edison. Although Wozniak has built a home computer what it does not do is utilize everything within the house. A computer is a Direct current device which actually does not have any risk of destroying everything around it or killing everyone.

Tesla on the other hand would more likely need a license than Edison because of his dangerous Tesla Coil which would be generating thousands of volts. One slip of this could end in one hell of an explosion. Though Edison would need one more for his other ventures in coal based power plants.

Another idea I’ve pondered was if you work with a high voltage DC powered electronic such as a vending machine would you need a contractors license? My answer to that would be Yes and No. Yes because it would make a lot of sense to be able to understand how to keep the AC current from becoming dangerous and No because robotics have not needed a license to make. The other reason why I would say yes to the vending machine is because a vending machine uses the exact same PLC programs like any factory’s motor control such as Allen Bradley or Siemens.

Personally I do not like to call a DC device an electronic due to the fact anything can then be an electronic. An electronic is a microchip or a circuit board. DC devices can be giant apparatuses.

The one rule I have come to believe is completely true is that so long as the device does not operate in your entire house circuitry such as a light, electrical socket or panel board then it does not need a contractors license. That does leave out, of course, refrigerators and toasters.

Many questions and many ideas to ponder on this subject. The NEC code book is a vast and expansive book that is always changing. For myself I’d love to have a whole row of code books beginning from 2011 to the year of my death. Electrical work is forever and collecting the rules is something magical.

According to a study conducted by Yale University, many workers are now demanding wages and benefits far greater than the minimum wages they see now.

For manufacturing workers back home this can be a brand new start to an era of automated manufacturing. Although automated manufacturing is nothing new, it never had the chance to grow here in the United States due to the abundance of cheap labor in China.

The idea in investing in machinery and 9-10 technicians was something that seemed psychotic to most companies. It was easier to allow the death of 1500 workers in Bangladesh just to make a few hundred garments. Why is that?

Most of these workers only worked for around 10-15 cents per hour and lived on 1.20$ per week.Though these same workers are now fed up with the way they are treated.

The problem with these companies is how they really don’t have much concern for human life. Finances are more important of course. They tend to threaten us by taking our jobs away all because we wanted to be treated as human beings.

For engineers and electricians, this is the beginning of a new age of work. No longer will engineers have to work only as electronics experts or managers and no longer will electricians look at construction and service as their only way of income.

As electric workers we really need to bound together as one here. There shouldn’t be a difference anymore between engineer and electrician. Engineers should be able to splice a wire and work with hand tools just like an electrician should be able to design their own buildings. We need to unite in this cause.

I wanted everyone to know that although things will be the same for this site I will be changing it more to an electro-philosophical site where I talk about ideas on how to get over problems for a device in order to move forward with progress. I will begin tonight, there will not be anymore religious or lecturing posts but more of a puzzle solving blog talking about the different types of technology whether it’d be a time machine or the self driving car I tend to talk about a lot. Take care for now